Open Thread - Dragged "Kicking And Screaming" Edition

by Steve

Even though the Senate voted against Democratic proposals for a withdrawal timeline Thursday, events on the ground in Iraq now make this irrelevant. The Times of London is reporting Friday that the new Iraqi government is prepared to announce as early as Sunday that it is offering a peace plan to the insurgents designed to split them off from Al Qaeda and bring them into the government.

And what does the Iraqi government plan to offer the Sunni insurgency to get them to lay down their arms and ditch Al Qaeda?

The 28-point package for national reconciliation will offer Iraqi resistance groups inclusion in the political process and an amnesty for their prisoners if they renounce violence and lay down their arms, The Times can reveal.

The Government will promise a finite, UN-approved timeline for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq; a halt to US operations against insurgent strongholds; an end to human rights violations, including those by coalition troops; and compensation for victims of attacks by terrorists or Iraqi and coalition forces.

It will pledge to take action against Shia militias and death squads. It will also offer to review the process of “de-Baathification” and financial compensation for the thousands of Sunnis who were purged from senior jobs in the Armed Forces and Civil Service after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

In other words, Bush will soon be told by the Iraqis that we will be leaving under a UN-approved withdrawal timeline, regardless of whether the “Decider” wants to go or not, and regardless of whether or not we have built bases in that country.